He-Man Nostalgia - Part 2

Finally, I got around to making the paper crafts of He-Man and Skeletor from this website: http://minipapercraft.blogspot.com/search/label/Heman%20and%20the%20Masters%20of%20the%20universe

Have a look at my attempt:

Rising Sea Level - Solution is Desalination

There has been a spike in news articles on rising sea levels, its impact, solutions, and inevitability.
Well I cannot speak about inevitability because I am no Oracle or Seer; neither do I know the vast grand plan.

I can only give my limited solution, that too, if rising sea level is looked at as a problem and not a tool for new economy. Well, my solution may be seen as some sort of economy generator, lets see.

What I propose is to drastically expand desalination activity across all coast lines and to use the filtered water for agriculture and general use. The usage should be in the coastal areas that are at least 300 to 500 kilometers far away from the coast line.

This will reduce seal level and enrich the land's depleting ground water. This will also reduce the stress on rain water and help farmers invest in heavy water using crops that usually get more price than other crops.

Making LibreOffice documents look like Microsoft Word 2007 documents

Taking inspiration from my previous article "Making SoftMaker FreeOffice TextMaker documents look like Microsoft Word 2007 documents" at https://aajkyakiya.blogspot.com/2016/07/making-softmaker-freeoffice-textmaker.html, I have now tried to do the same in LibreOffice Writer v 6.1.6

Please read the above article to get a background for this post.

The LibreOffice document/template can be downloaded from the below location:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DcAyEqidRf0K21C-mZ-_FpksJ4CzooHO

Again as in my previous post, this is an English language template. The template uses the default fonts used in Word 2007 - you may have to change the fonts if you do not have these installed on your system. For example, on modern Linux systems, the alternatives are available in the croscore fonts package. Also, the template uses the Letter page size.

Please leave a reply if this document/template worked for you.

Character based Society vs Law based Society

Every person wants to live in a Society that respects that person's ethos. Many have 'nice' ethos, no doubt, but many also want to do whatever they want without any consequences. For example, I have met with many people who want a strict law of the land for others but not for them. For them, they want the law to look the other way when they embezzle other people's funds, but want a very strict law on other people.

Why is this? Our present society has raised us to follow the "Law of the Land", and many of these "Laws" have loopholes, or we become smart/knowledgeable about the laws to maneuver our way through all the nooks and corners to ultimately get what we want.

Is this how we want our Society to function. Do we want the law to spell out each and every point of our lives. Do we want pages upon pages of laws to govern us. Do we really have to have people that are always ready to pounce upon us for even the smallest non-conforming thing.

Our forefathers, the enlightened beings that walked on earth and all the enlightened texts want us to become a Character Based society rather then a Law Based society. A character based society would be where each one of us would know the difference between right and wrong and not look for what the Law says.

For comparison, I think the Internet ecosystem (and technology in general) is becoming more of a Character Based society. People on social media give their inputs based on what they think is right rather then what the "Law" thinks is right. I even see the open source movement as a character based society where each individual contributes for the "greater good" of all.

But, can Character Based society remain intact in the absence of Law? This is the real question. I think that Law will still be required, but based on character and not punishment. The end result of Law should not be punishment but increase of Character.

Again, this is very similar to the Internet ecosystem. Where we see a technology infringing upon people's rights and then when Law (mostly, a uproar by Character) comes then the technology changes its track to conform with Character rather then getting Punished. This is what it should be.

Gyan | MindChow | Food for Thought | Steps to Smiles

The below text are taken from the 'Steps to Smile.pdf' by CA R.S.Kalra'. (Get this pdf from http://voiceofca.in/siteadmin/document/R_S_Kalra_stepstosmiles.pdf || https://drive.google.com/file/d/11QtLsdNnetf9ObDwtHb2R-UAR7_fIiom/view?usp=sharing)

As long as we do not forgive people who have hurt us, they occupy a rent-free space in our mind.

Negative attitude is like a punctured tyre. You cannot reach anywhere until you change it.

In the company of wind, even dust achieves great heights. But, when mixed with water, it becomes mud. Choose the right company to enhance your value.

A bird sitting on a branch is not afraid of the branch breaking or falling, because it trusts not the branch but its own wings.

We need everything 'permanent' in a 'temporary' life.

A hard fact to remember do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong no one forgets.

It's not important to go to heaven after we leave, but it's important to create heaven in someone's heart, before we leave.

Maturity is not when we start speaking "Big Things" but actually it is when we start understanding "Small Things".

A man asked God I want happiness so God said first remove "I" that's ego, and then remove "Want" that's desire then see you are left with only "Happiness".

Never waste a minute of your precious life by squandering it thinking about people you don't like.

Four steps to live life:
1st - look back and thank God,
2nd - look forward and trust God,
3rd - look around and believe God,
4th - look within and find God

In order to have a comfortable journey of life, reduce the luggage of desires.

Containment Action, Corrective Action, Preventive Action, and PERT

This blog post uses the content from the https://www.8dreport.com/articles/difference-between-containment-corrective-and-preventive-actions-in-8d-report/ page and other informative websites.

In Problem Solving, after recognizing the problem, you are required to take the three actions: Containment Action, Corrective Action, and Preventive Action. (In some cases the Containment Action can overlap with the Corrective Action).

Many get confused between these three actions. Lets take a look at what these three actions are.

• Containment actions are the actions that try to limit a specific problem’s extent and establish normal operations.
• Corrective actions reveal and prevent the occurred problem from ever happening again by eliminating cause.
• Preventive actions are clear solutions to improve processes and products and prevent similar potential problems from ever happening.

Lets look at an example:

The Problem is of project running out of budget.
The very obvious Root Cause is determined: Incorrect Effort Estimation. (Why does this always happen ;)

In this case the three actions to be taken are:

Containment Action: The most immediate action that has to be taken is to discuss the budget estimation with the client and to get approval for Schedule or Cost Baseline Change (wherever required)

Corrective Action: The corrective measures to be taken would be to revise the schedule and the cost baseline by re-estimating the efforts required for remaining task completion by using 3-Point Effort Estimation Technique.

Preventive Action: The Preventive Action is/are the action(s) that will be taken from this time onward. In this case, the problem requires to use 3-Point Effort Estimation Technique for estimation of all future projects.

OK, so what is three point estimation technique. From Wikipedia, this is:

The three-point estimation technique is used in management and information systems applications for the construction of an approximate probability distribution representing the outcome of future events, based on very limited information.

PERT (Program Evaluation And Review Technique) is the most commonly used method in three point estimation technique. From Wikipedia:

The program (or project) evaluation and review technique (PERT) is a statistical tool used in project management, which was designed to analyze and represent the tasks involved in completing a given project.
First developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s, it is commonly used in conjunction with the critical path method (CPM).

The parameters in PERT:

• Most Likely Cost (Cm): This cost estimate considers everything goes as normal.
• Pessimistic Cost (Cp): This considers the worst case and it assumes that almost everything goes wrong. 
• Optimistic Cost (Co): This estimate considers the best case and assumes that everything goes better than planned.
• PERT Estimate formula is: Ce = (Co + 4Cm + Cp)/6 provide a more accurate estimate.
• Deviation: (Cp – Co)/6

Something is dangerously wrong with Microsoft products

Yesterday I was in need to have a Skype chat with a person and I am kind of new to the video chatting thing and also new to Skype.

So I went ahead and downloaded Skype on my mobile phone and tried to create an account. The options were to use an existing account, or use my mobile number, or create a new account.

I was previously thinking to create an Outlook.com account anyways to try out the new Microsoft backed email, so I decided to create a new Outlook.com account.

I created the new account, logged in using that account in Skype and successfully completed the Skype call. I must say that the Skype video call quality was quite good except for a little lag at the beginning.

After the Skype call, I decided to download the Microsoft Outlook app on my Android phone. I downloaded, logged in, but didn't have much time to test anything in it. I thought to leave it as it is and then come back to it today.

Today, the Outlook app automatically logged me out and asked me to sign in again. But, the account just won't let me in using my password. This was something that has happened to me for the very first time. No other service or product has just forgotten my password. So, I went to the app's "Forgot Password" option.

The "Forgot Password" link first asked me to input a different email address to get a security code. Which I did and got the security code. Then, the app tells to open a link in a browser to reset the password. The link opens a page that asks for a variety of things, like name, birth date, Skype details, etc. I inputted all details that I positively knew.

"Your information is not sufficient" -- This was the horrid message spewed back by Microsoft. Microsoft has made a point to not allow me to get back into my account. So now, I do not know what will happen with my Outlook account or my Skype account. Will the account be kept in cold storage? Will my account be used by fraudulent people or bots?

I have just one advice to all: Please STAY AWAY from Microsoft products.